I haven't read the book The Apostolic Congregation by George G. Hunter III. Happily, I have a friend who did. Here are some good quotes from it. “Today, worldwide, wherever most of the ministry that matters is assigned to the clergy, Christianity stagnates or declines. Today, worldwide, wherever most of the ministry that matters is entrusted …
Continue reading Quotes from George C. Hunter III on Evangelism and Church Growth
I love a good quote. This is good because it makes one think. "When someone is honestly 55% right, that's very good and there's no use wrangling. And if someone is 60% right, it's wonderful, it's great luck, and let him thank God. But what's to be said about 75% right? Wise people say this …
Today, we had our third practice for our seminary choir. We are performing tomorrow. There is somewhere around 18 of us. We represent people from the Philippines, United States, Thailand, India, and Myanmar (I think that is all). It is difficult to imagine a song that could be selected that would be culturally relevant to …
<Note: I take a more Baptist understanding of Christian baptism (although I am certainly more open-minded than some). Thus I understand baptism as primarily symbolic rather than sacramental or salvific. However, I think most all Christians would agree that there is a strong symbolic aspect to baptism. As such, hopefully there are thoughts here worthy …
Continue reading Missiological Implications of the Symbolic Understanding of Baptism
In evangelism there is a tendency to see response in the simplest of terms. Full acceptance is GOOD. Anything less is BAD. But there are a wide range of responses, Here are six major options (not necessarily a complete list). I got these from Dr. Dan Russell, my professor in seminary. Not sure of any …
Continue reading Six Different Responses to Presentation of the Gospel Message, Ranked
My wife and I were invited to attend the groundbreaking ceremony of the Crawley Bethesda Mission Center. It will be on the grounds of Philippine Baptist Theological Seminary. The plan is for the upper story to be focused on training for cross-cultural missions, while the lower floor is involved more in holistic and regional missions …
Continue reading “Southern and Asian Shift” of Christian Missions
Some notes from Stephen Neill's book, "A History of Christian Missions," regarding early missions: A. Neill speaks of three things that occurred in the first century that radically affected the expansion of the church. 1. The first was the realization that Jesus was not going to return quickly. After a fairly frenzied attempt to evangelize …
Continue reading Quotes on Early Christian Missions by Stephen Neill and Julian the Apostate
<Much of this article is discussed more in Sir Normal Anderson's book "CHRISTIANITY AND WORLD RELIGIONS: THE CHALLENGE OF PLURALISM"(starting around page 169)> “What view should the Christian take of non-Christian religions-…- as systems that profess to mediate salvation?” Anderson describes three broad viewpoints. To provide real-world illustration of these options, I am using the …
Continue reading What Should Be the Christian View on Non-Christian Religions?
A couple of common, and related, themes in missions today are "contextualization" and "self-theologization." The first says that to make the Word of God accessible to a culture, it must be translated into that culture, not only in language but in symbology (in its many forms) as well. To accomplish this, one attempts to minimize …
Continue reading Is Asian Christian Theology One Thing or Many?
<Click Here for Part One> A. Failure has a strongly positive role... it can help us learn more about ourselves. John Maxwell in Failing Forward, lists several common reasons for failure: Poor people skills. (#1 Cause) It’s about relationships. Negative attitude. Pessimistic, half empty. Can’t see opportunities… only sees problems. Bad fit. Find what you …
Continue reading The Joy of Failure in Missions. Part II: Response